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Martin Heidegger: Ontological Difference

1. Martin Heidegger discusses the "ontological difference" as the distinction between beings and Being. While no one knows exactly what Being means, we have a basic understanding of it as referring to the being of all beings. 2. Heidegger illustrates the puzzling nature of distinguishing between beings and Being with a story from 1924. When asked how to make the ontological distinction, Heidegger responded that it was not something made by humans, but rather something we are placed into. 3. For Heidegger, difference is not something created by humans but rather something that precedes us and separates beings from Being. It is an arising distinction that splits things apart.

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134 views1 page

Martin Heidegger: Ontological Difference

1. Martin Heidegger discusses the "ontological difference" as the distinction between beings and Being. While no one knows exactly what Being means, we have a basic understanding of it as referring to the being of all beings. 2. Heidegger illustrates the puzzling nature of distinguishing between beings and Being with a story from 1924. When asked how to make the ontological distinction, Heidegger responded that it was not something made by humans, but rather something we are placed into. 3. For Heidegger, difference is not something created by humans but rather something that precedes us and separates beings from Being. It is an arising distinction that splits things apart.

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Martin Heidegger : ontological difference

When Heidegger later on speaks of the ontological difference, he means by it the difference between being
and all the things that are. What this is supposed to mean is rather obscure. Basically no human being knows
what the concept das Sein means, and yet we all have a first pre-understanding, when we hear the word, and we
understand that here the being that belongs to all beings has now been raised to the level of a concept. And so
now it is different from all beings. That is what the ontological difference means, first and above all. The
young Heidegger was always conscious of the fact that it was truly puzzling that we do indeed experience and
name many beings, but we also name and think the being of beings [das Sein des Seienden].
To illustrate the puzzle of this distinction, let me tell a true story. It took place in Marburg. My friend Gerhard
Krger and I were accompanying Heidegger to his home after a lecture. He lived in the Swan Alley, so I can
date it more exactly: it had to have been in the spring of 1924. At that time we were already vigorously
discussing the ontological difference, so we asked Heidegger how one really makes this ontological distinction.
Presumably we wanted to start out from the concept of reflection by a subject which formed the starting point of
German idealism. Heidegger looked at us condescendingly and said, But no, this differentiation was certainly
not something made by me. This was in 1924, long before the turn. Those who know the later Heidegger
know that the difference [das Unterschied] he spoke of then was not something that we have made, but rather
we are placed into this difference [Unterschied], in other words, into this Differenz [difference]. Sein [Being]
shows itself in existing things, and this already raises the question of what it means that there are beings
[Seiendes]. By way of introduction, I would also note how Heidegger formulated it in his later work on
Nietzsche: our thinking finds itself situated from its very inception on the path to the distinguishing of beings
from being. As is well known, French Heideggerianism or Nietzscheanism has endorsed this sense of
difference, following Heidegger and inspired by him, and intentionally spelled the word diffrence wrongly
as diffrance. Obviously this alteration is intended to make one aware of the double meaning which resides
in diffrer, namely, deferring till later or distinguishing between things. Difference, then, is not something that a
person makes; rather, it is something that is done to you, or that yawns before you like a chasm. It is something
that kicks things apart [tritt auseinander]. An arising takes place.

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